Far Country, a — Volume 2 eBook

“And then there’s Mr. Krebs, of whom we
were speaking at supper, and who puts all kinds of
queer notions into their heads. Father says he’s
an anarchist. I heard father say at supper that
he was at Harvard with you. Did you like him?”

“Well,” I answered hesitatingly, “I
didn’t know him very well.”

“Of course not,” she put in. “I
suppose you couldn’t have.”

“He’s got these notions,” I explained,
“that are mischievous and crazy—­but
I don’t dislike him.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that!”
she answered quietly. “I like him, too—­he
seems so kind, so understanding.”

“Do you know him?”

“Well,—­” she hesitated—­“I
feel as though I do. I’ve only met him once,
and that was by accident. It was the day the big
strike began, last spring, and I had been shopping,
and started for the mills to get father to walk home
with me, as I used to do. I saw the crowds blocking
the streets around the canal. At first I paid
no attention to them, but after a while I began to
be a little uneasy, there were places where I had to
squeeze through, and I couldn’t help seeing that
something was wrong, and that the people were angry.
Men and women were talking in loud voices. One
woman stared at me, and called my name, and said something
that frightened me terribly. I went into a doorway—­and
then I saw Mr. Krebs. I didn’t know who
he was. He just said, ’You’d better
come with me, Miss Hutchins,’ and I went with
him. I thought afterwards that it was a very
courageous thing for him to do, because he was so popular
with the mill people, and they had such a feeling
against us. Yet they didn’t seem to resent
it, and made way for us, and Mr. Krebs spoke to many
of them as we passed. After we got to State Street,
I asked him his name, and when he told me I was speechless.
He took off his hat and went away. He had such
a nice face—­not at all ugly when you look
at it twice—­and kind eyes, that I just
couldn’t believe him to be as bad as father and
George think he is. Of course he is mistaken,”
she added hastily, “but I am sure he is sincere,
and honestly thinks he can help those people by telling
them what he does.”

The question shot at me during the meeting rankled
still; I wanted to believe that Krebs had inspired
it, and her championship of him gave me a twinge of
jealousy,—­the slightest twinge, to be sure,
yet a perceptible one. At the same time, the
unaccountable liking I had for the man stirred to
life. The act she described had been so characteristic.

“He’s one of the born rebels against society,”
I said glibly. “Yet I do think he’s
sincere.”